What did archers do when they ran out of arrows?

The simple answer is that they got (or were given) more from their baggage train.

Any force of longbowmen would have had in their baggage train a number of spare sheaves of arrows. Requisitioning resupply over a long campaign was also fairly common-- take for example in the English Crecy campaign. Two weeks into the campaign, Edward III requests another 2,280 bows and 5,550 sheaves of arrows from England. That's 133,200 arrows.

It is likely that during a pitched battle, they would have squires and camp followers ferrying arrows to the bowmen on the front line so that they were unlikely to be without arrows for any length of time.

This is only one source so by no means is this a universal rule but there is a mention of English archers running out of arrows during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

Author Anne Curry writes "When the archers ran out of arrows they dropped their bows and using hatchets, swords and the mallets they had used to drive their stakes in, attacked the now disordered, fatigued and wounded French men-at-arms massed in front of them."

So typically archers did not engage in melee combat? Were they consequently in more or less danger of casualty or was there no significant difference? Was it considered a desirable position in an army?

I'm not a historian, but Agincourt is not a good example of longbow tactics in my opinion, because it was such an and unusual battle with a surprising outcome. The English were outnumbered by the French in this situation, yet they still beat them in the end. The French knights and men-at-arms were so eager to reach the English that they charged up hill through the mud, tiring out themselves and their horses. The fact the the English "attacked the now disordered, fatigued and wounded French men-at-arms" would probably be an anomaly compared to other battles. One has to take into account that the English were fighting for their lives with no hope of retreat. They knew that if they didn't win, they were unlikely to ever see England again. They had also been on a campaign in France for a while, so they probably had less arrows than they would have in a different circumstance (this is just guesswork, but from what I know about the campaign at Harfleur, the English were not doing well at that time). I'm sure some real historians are raging over this lackadaisical description of Agincourt, but that is the best I could do.

In response to your other questions; I can't answer about "archers" in generals, because "archers" have occupied different positions all throughout history. However, in the case of 1400's England, longbow men were actually volunteers (in most situations). A law in England required every man between the ages of 12 and 65 to practice weekly with a longbow. This meant that (in theory) every man in England had some skill with a longbow. The people who joined the armies during campaigns were doing so for various reasons, but were there because of their own self interest. I wouldn't call it desirable, because it was not an exclusive position, but I certainly attracted some volunteers.

I watched a show about Agincourt a few weeks ago, from what I remember they were like the cannon fodder of an army, they didn't get paid much and if you got massacred, oh well. I believe the English archers were slightly different since they were so effective with that longbow of theirs, but in other armies they usually didn't give 2 shits about you, the archers were just commoners after all.

Archers would likely have taken part in the melee if the enemy got to close though, I wouldn't want my men shooting into it, you're likely to hit your own side.

This comment was reported. And, has been strongly downvoted ([-5] as I write this, only half an hour after the comment was posted).

However, given that it's not a top-level comment, I'm inclined to leave it up. This would not be appropriate as a top-level answer to a question, and would probably be removed if it had been submitted as such, but we are more lenient on non-top-level comments.

Subreddits don't have feelings. Your courtesy is to be extended to all contributors regardless of any disagreements you may have with them. Since this is the only contribution you have made so far to /r/askhistorians, I'm going to ask you to make sure your next comment is in line with the spirit of this subreddit, otherwise we will have to part ways.

Please don't make this more dramatic. A threat is quite different from a warning, he's just saying we have rules that promote discourse, if one isn't interested in following them yet allowed to post it's unfair to everyone and should be stopped.

I not exactly sure about this, but I wouldn't call longbow men "fresh" after they finished shooting. The amount of force required to pull a longbow was huge, and pulling it far enough to actually shoot it even more difficult. I would guess that by the time the longbow men had fired all their arrows they would not be "fresh", although they would possibly be fresher than other infantry. I don't think that military commanders viewed their archers like that.

It is worth noting that archery is, compared to many other martial forms, hard to master. A skilled longbowman needs to be in relatively good physical shape (the pull being anywhere from 80 to 200 lbs, to be repeated over and over again), be disciplined and master the weapon itself. Bowmen were, as far as medieval infantry goes, rather valueable. Yes, they have been used in melee, as they were at Agincourt, but this is a desperate measure and an exception rather than the norm.

It seems I was beaten to getting to answer by a few other folks. But Bardeg is accurate as far as I know. Agincourt is typically a good measure of the English Longbow man's tactics, as it is a battle where the bulk of the attention was on the archers.

Also Medievalismist is accurate as well. Most armies, especially English armies with so many longbow men, had an incredible amount of arrows so running out was rare.

But long answer short, to the best of my knowledge most archers carried some sort of close questers weapon of their preference. Most were small weapons like a one handed axe or long knife, and almost no archer knew how to use a long sword.

Well not really. It depends on what you mean by cannon fodder but the crossbow men were extremely rare in most armies, due to the fact that almost all crossbow men were mercenaries. There were not many nations that would employe a cross bowmen that was not familiar with it, infact I cannot think of one right now. It was a very complex machine and required both skill to use and time to reload, meaning a wasted shot was doubly damaging. Combine that with the fact that cross bows were very expensive, compared to a longbow and even more costly to maintain, and it means again almost no nations would use simple peasants or conscripts to man crossbows.

You are right though that the typical longbowman took on average almost a decade of training to learn to use a man sized bow, one capable of killing a knight in armor. That is why few nations employed them and why the English were so successful with them.

A final note, no archer was nobility, which means they had no duty or no requirement through honor to uphold their name and their crest, as many knights seem to have felt. My point being, that when archers were facing a charge or heavy attack, generally they tended to be highly mobile and also have a high interest in self preservation.

Yes, more or less. But don't think breaking ranks and fleeing completely. More accurately, they would break ranks, re-form and if they had arrows left they would fire several volleys.

In the rare instance when they did not, again going to Agincourt, archers would become auxiliary and support troops for unmounted knights, roaming the line behind the knights; supporting them, finishing off downed soldiers, taking captives, bounty, etc. The idea being the archers could simply move from one position to the next fluidly on the battlefield simply because of how lightweight their gear was and how little they had to worry about in terms of fighting mentality.

A good comparison would be how the spartans would treat their support and slave troops during a battle. Once the role of long range specialist was served, either english archer or spartan support be it slings, bows, spears etc, they would fall in behind the heavy troops and their armor doing what damage they could. English archers were similar in fashion, if facing a situation in which they had to fall back or move, they simple fell back into line and take up a supportive position for the knights they fought with.

Basically yes. Although in battles, things never work out that well, often archers could be caught in the open through a quick charge or left exposed on a flank.

But in general that is fairly accurate, archers would transform to the situation they were needed in. Don't forget that the longbow could be fired at great distances but also in close range. Archers, as long as they were armed with heavy tipped arrows(normally, as far as I know, arrows with iron tips to penetrate plate armor) were extremely deadly to knights, period. And the historical sources I have read support that theory that archers played a "support" role to men at arms and Knights.

A final point to keep in mind is that while playing that "support role", in English forces in the 1300-1500's archer often made up the bulk of the troops and at several battles, be it Agincourt, or another, proved decisive in the outcome of the battle.

Another possible comparison would be English riflemen in the napoleonic wars as opposed to the short range skirmishers deployed by the French.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of an arrow head going through armor, but I thought that was very hard to do, even with a tip suited for the job and the powerful longbow. I saw a demonstration where an arrow head made in the same way as the blacksmiths did was put against a breastplate, it went in, but just barely, any layer of cloth or mail beneath it would have stopped it before it reached the squishy man beneath. Though I take that with a grain of salt, I don't believe every piece of armor was as thick as the main chest piece. Wouldn't it have been simpler, and correct me if I am wrong, but the longbow was used in a "rain of arrows" so to speak, so that the maximum amount of shafts was in the air, to maximize the amount of chances that were possible to hit an area that were not covered by armor?

Also, the actual rolls of the time that listed what each lord on campaign with King Henry are very detailed, showing the numbers and pay of each troop. It turns out the archers were a bargain deal, that you could bring many of them for the price of heavier infantry or knights. I would ask if the reason that the English fielded so many archers was the fact that they were just CHEAPER, not only because they proved very effective. It seems like a general's ideal soldier, a cheap one that can do a great deal of damage.

The weaponry of the well-equipped archer remained fairly constant during this whole period. Besides the archer's longbow, and a sheaf of 24 war arrows, the archer also carried a dagger, a sword of some type (generally a short sword) and a small shield know as a "Buckler ". The English were renowned "Sword and Buckler" fighters until the 17th Century.

Pretty much in line with everything else that I've read. Though I have heard of a shortened version of the halberd being used as well.

At Agincourt, they were huge in keeping their line, but they had the advantage of the ground being muddy and fighting exhausted enemies. Their lack of heavy armor would be somewhat of an advantage in that battle.

During sacks of towns once the enemies walls had been overrun you would see archers use melee weapons, usually much larger ones, poleaxes and the like due to it needing a huge strength to swing, and much less skill. It was usually done to hunt fleeing enemies, rather than in a pitched battle, but if they did run out of arrows of course they would attack in melee, it doesn't make sense to leave much of your force out of the way.

The Mongol hordes also used bows to tire out their enemies as they were mounted and could easily move away from enemy infantry, then they would charge using lances or swords.